Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[garbon]

I'm not sure if it is bureaucratic - I wonder if it is almost personal now because Williams appealed, she resisted being fired and then took them to the tribunal etc. It may just be breaucratic but I wonder if there is almost personal bad blood on this which is why they are fighting it and using every route of appeal they get?

On bureaucratic, I was thinking about how they now have on the force someone who couldn't pass the entry requirements to join the force. If incident had happened before she applied to be a police officer, they never would have accepted her.

[garbon]

I don't think we've discussed it as I don't think I've read about it before.

I'm positive it's been discussed on Languish, though.  So Garbon is not hallucinating, at least

I couldn't find anything when searching on the forum.

[Tamas]

I don't remember it being discussed and I practically live here.

[Sheilbh]

Scottish government has announced that basically all restrictions will end on 9 August.

They intend to keep a mask mandate -  inluding in nightclubs. Though they acknowledge this may be difficult to enforce and plan to consult with the sector on this. Otherwise masks will still be required when people are stood up/moving in restaurants and in secondary schools. They're also not allowing people to stand up and drink at the bar in pubs (but this is allowed if they're sat down - or if they're not at the bar because clubs are open).

Again I'm struck that their main priority is less epidemiological than to be different enough from what the English government are doing, to say they're different than the English government

Also - for Tamas. There's a campaign in my area to save "Peckham Green" it's a tiny bit of green. And I get the importance of that, but there are other bigger, nicer bits of green in that area. The campaign is against building 150 homes - of which 95 will be social rent and only 50 will be sold (including "affordable" sales). My area is very left-wing/progressive so Labour+Lib Dems+Greens got 85% of the vote in the last election, I think we're one of the about 80% Remain areas in the referendum so this isn't Tory NIMBYism. But I feel like if left/progressive politics can't even get behind building that is 2/3s social rent housing then we might be in trouble

Speaking of which a Labour MP - a left Labour MP at that - has come out against the building of 1,200 homes in their East London constituency (which was approved by the local Labour council). I think their objections are that it doesn't contain enough affordable or social housing - but also it's got Tesco as an anchor retail tenant (because it's all mixed use). Tesco are already on their site so they'd just have a bigger supermarket. But the site at the minute is just brownfield light industrial/parking space

But there we go - all political forces in the UK are basically in favour of no building anywhere ever. Labour don't want brownfield developments in their communities because even when they're 2/3s social rent they're not social/affordable enough and the Tories don't want greenfield developments in their communities. The Greens oppose all building - even of new public transport infrastructure. And the Lib Dems support building in principle, in theory at a national level but will oppose every development locally

[Josquius]

Though in general I support AV over PR as the constituency link is important, I do think tearing that down in large cities could be useful.
It strikes me it doesn't matter about pissing off temporary renters as an MP if they will just move 3 streets away next year and be in another constituency.

[Tamas]

Scottish government has announced that basically all restrictions will end on 9 August.

They intend to keep a mask mandate -  inluding in nightclubs. Though they acknowledge this may be difficult to enforce and plan to consult with the sector on this. Otherwise masks will still be required when people are stood up/moving in restaurants and in secondary schools. They're also not allowing people to stand up and drink at the bar in pubs (but this is allowed if they're sat down - or if they're not at the bar because clubs are open).

Again I'm struck that their main priority is less epidemiological than to be different enough from what the English government are doing, to say they're different than the English government

Also - for Tamas. There's a campaign in my area to save "Peckham Green" it's a tiny bit of green. And I get the importance of that, but there are other bigger, nicer bits of green in that area. The campaign is against building 150 homes - of which 95 will be social rent and only 50 will be sold (including "affordable" sales). My area is very left-wing/progressive so Labour+Lib Dems+Greens got 85% of the vote in the last election, I think we're one of the about 80% Remain areas in the referendum so this isn't Tory NIMBYism. But I feel like if left/progressive politics can't even get behind building that is 2/3s social rent housing then we might be in trouble

Speaking of which a Labour MP - a left Labour MP at that - has come out against the building of 1,200 homes in their East London constituency (which was approved by the local Labour council). I think their objections are that it doesn't contain enough affordable or social housing - but also it's got Tesco as an anchor retail tenant (because it's all mixed use). Tesco are already on their site so they'd just have a bigger supermarket. But the site at the minute is just brownfield light industrial/parking space

But there we go - all political forces in the UK are basically in favour of no building anywhere ever. Labour don't want brownfield developments in their communities because even when they're 2/3s social rent they're not social/affordable enough and the Tories don't want greenfield developments in their communities. The Greens oppose all building - even of new public transport infrastructure. And the Lib Dems support building in principle, in theory at a national level but will oppose every development locally

[Sheilbh]

In other /this country is a wreck news - the Geronimo story is driving me crazy.

Bovine TB costs farmers a lot in insurance and potential costs. One of the government control strategy is badger culling (which is always controversial) because badgers help spread it, but other animals can also get bovine TB at no risk to themselves but that pass it on to cows.

This has happened to a stud alpaca called Geronimo in south Gloucestershire who is suspected of having and spreading bovine TB. It has had a positive bovine TB test. The owner is disputing the reliability of those tests and wants a full testing regime put in place for this single alpaca.

The owner of the alpaca has been in a big legal battle against Geronimo's slaughter since 2017 including two High Court cases. The High Court has now ruled that the alpaca can be killed and issued a warrant for its destruction.

In the meantime the tabloids have launched a campaign (it is silly season after all) to save Geronimo. According to the political editor of the Sun there is now a big fight within government, with George Eustice, DEFRA Secretary, coming under a lot of pressure. Eustice points out that the alpaca presents a risk to farmers nearby and that, legally, the government could be sued by farmers whose herds are infected if the government decides, against its own policies and the High Court ruling about them, to not kill Geronimo.

The owner is now calling on Boris Johnson to intervene because DEFRA are committed to killing Geronimo and the tabloids are backing her calls with their campaign. The Sun is running it as "SAVE GERONIMO! Alpaca facing death from bureaucrat's bullet" and that Geronimo has been "condemned to death" by Whitehall indifference.

I swear to God if the EU just carved off 1% of the CAP money and opened a fucking European-funded donkey sanctuary Brexit never would have happened

I don't want to say this is why the country's a mess. But it's not unrelated

[Tamas]

   Look at it at a different way: you must have a pretty prosperous and stress-free country to be hung up on issues like putting down a single dangerous disease-ridden animal.

[The Brain]

Don't you guys have that isolated bio warfare island somewhere? Just put Geronimo there.

[Josquius]

Just how long do alpaca live anyway? 3 years extra seems a decent run.

[The Brain]

Some whisper that "Geronimo" is a title and not a name for a specific individual.

[Sheilbh]

Just how long do alpaca live anyway? 3 years extra seems a decent run.

Apparently 20 years

But yeah 3-4 years worth of legal challenges are not bad

[The Larch]

Just how long do alpaca live anyway? 3 years extra seems a decent run.

An average of 15-20 years, according to wiki.

[Jacob]

It make me wonder if, while we're all wondering about whether we're now just living in America's culture wars if we're actually in Australia's?

The common denominator in all three: Rupert Murdoch's media and influence apparatus.

[Sheilbh]

The common denominator in all three: Rupert Murdoch's media and influence apparatus.

Yes.

I don't know about Australia where Murdoch owns, I think, about two-thirds of the print media. But in the US I get the impression that Murdoch was an innovator in creating something like Fox and it's still key and dominant on the right - NewsMax, OANN and all the tiny circulation, heavily subsidised right-wing papers and websites are nothing to Fox.

In the UK Murdoch is really important but we also have Lord Rothermere (the Daily Mail, pornographer Richard Desmond (the Express) and the Barclay brothers (the Telegraph and the Spectator). Hell we even had a left-wing version in Robert Maxwell (father of Ghislaine) who owned the Mirror, most local papers and MacMillan publishing.

Total aside - but I am desperate for a biopic TV series about Maxwell - his life is incredible. He was born in Ruthenia and most of his family were killed in the Holocaust but he'd escaped to France where he was in the Czechoslovak army in exile that was later pulled back to the UK (he was evacuated from Dunkirk!). He took part in the Normandy landings and was awarded the Military Cross by Monty for his valour. Used his connections with the Allied authorities to become distributor of translations of European scientific textbooks then became a Labour MP and tried to buy the News of the World - twenty years before Murdoch - but his offer was rejected by the family who owned it because they didn't want to sell the family silver to a socialist, immigrant Jew. He still massively built up his publishing house, was an early investor in computer companies, had a lot of slightly shady links doing deals with Eastern European governments (he wrote a broadly positive biography of Ceaucescu) and then he bought the Mirror and launched a huge price and political war with the Sun. He even started buying up Australian papers to open a new front in his war with Murdoch

Edit: Apparently he also took over the New York Daily News to open a front against Murdoch who'd bought the NY Post. I feel like had he lived we'd almost certainly have a left-wing version of Fox

But then his companies started collapsing around him with lots of dodgy accounting in the early 90s (they did go bust) and there were allegations that he was dipping into the employee pension funds for his personal use. He allegedly committed suicide (he disappeared from his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine). There were suspicions his entire life that he was possibly being funded from sources in the USSR and possibly a Mossad agent - and he did have a state funeral in Israel -and was incredibly paranoid, it later turned out he had bugs recording staff all over his office buildings. But many of his former employees are still incredibly loyal to him, including Alastair Campbell who got his break as a reporter from Maxwell and ended up as political editor for the Mirror before becoming Tony Blair's comms guy. It's an incredible, and incredibly 20th century life, that deserves at least a Netflix series.

Instead we get 6 series about Queen Elizabeth II - one of the most boring lives of the last hundred years